May Night

May Night (Russian: Майская ночь, Majskaja noch) is a comic opera in three acts, four scenes, by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov from a libretto by the composer and is based on Nikolai Gogol's story May Night, or the Drowned Maiden, from his collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka.

The work was composed between 1878 and 1879 and first performed in 1880 at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg in Russia.

May Night is not part of the standard operatic repertoire in the West.

The St. Petersburg premiere took place on 21 January (O.S. 9 January) 1880 at the Mariinsky Theatre. It was conducted by Eduard Nápravník.

Other notable performances followed. In 1892 in Moscow, the Russian Private Opera's performance at the Shelaputin's Theatre was conducted by Iosif Pribik. Another Russian Private Opera production in 1898 was conducted by Sergei Rachmaninoff, while the Bolshoi Theatre presented the opera in 1909 conducted by Vyacheslav Suk.

Note: The Village-Head (Голова, Golova) is usually translated "Mayor". "Pannochka" is a diminutive of "Panna", a title in Polish and Ukrainian for an unmarried lady.

...
Wikipedia